hello all this is dr. Alsup and in this video we will be talking about the submandibular gland
itself so this will include actually where the submandibular gland is located and what
is this function additionally how do have this the secretions of the submandibular gland get into the
actual oral cavity so remember this is an exocrine gland so it is going to have a duct associated
with it anytime you have an exocrine think duct alright so so much of what we have seen thus far
the submandibular gland has been the superficial part you can see that it is the largest part of
the submandibular gland it's going to be located in that submandibular triangle posterior inferior
to the mandible but this superficial part is continuous around the border of the mylohyoid
muscle one of those super hyoid muscles the one that's going to be the floor of the mouth with
the deep part of the submandibular gland which you can see is located in the sublingual space
so that sublingual space is located between the oral cavity proper and the mylohyoid muscle so
there's a bit of that deep part here the saliva produced by the submandibular gland does not have
to travel as far as the saliva from the parotid gland does this duct which is referred to as the
submandibular or clinically often you'll hear referred to as Wharton's duct travels from the
deep part of the submandibular gland to the sublingual caruncle so not the submandibular
caruncle it's a sublingual caruncle that's something that always has given me a little
bit of a problem so in terms of that that name alright so you will see the two caruncles i'm
going to kind of try to circle them without blocking them so the two caruncles are on
either side of the lingual frenulum and medial to the sublingual
folds and these sublingual folds are going to be elevations so you can see that they're going to
be a little bit higher in terms of that caused by the deep sublingual glands as well as the
submandibular ducts so it's going to be these two small little areas that will allow for the
saliva for the submandibular gland to move into the oral cavity region I want to introduce while
we are here an important anatomic relationship between the submandibular duct I am outlining
right here and the lingual nerve that lingual nerve if you recall from other videos is going
to be a branch of v3 and we like to say that the lingual nerve cradles the submandibular duct for
a little bit of it of this expand so you can see how that submandibular duct is going superficial
too but whereas the lingual nerve will kind of dive underneath and cradle the submandibular duct
and we'll talk about this relationship again in the oral cavity session but since we were
here I wanted to go ahead and mention it and you can really see the expanse or the length of the
submandibular duct in this image so certainly comparatively shorter than what you have with
the parotid duct all right so question-answer time the question is which nerve passes deep
to the submandibular or Wharton's duct in the oral cavity is it auriculotemporal nerve
be the facial nerve see hypoglossal nerve or d the lingual nerve so we've just reviewed
this so hopefully it is fresh in your mind that the correct answer is d the lingual nerve now
for not actual bonus points what does the lingual nerve do this was covered in another video so this
is kind of a throwing a curveball here but think about it what is the lingual nerve do what is it
going to innervate it is going to provide general sensory innervation for the tongue anterior to the
valet papillae so importantly though it also is going to have fibers of the chorda tympani
that have pre ganglionic parasympathetic fibers that hitchhike on it to get to the submandibular
ganglion so the lingual nerve is important in the innervation pathway for the submandibular
gland so it's not the source of the innovation but it is part of that pathway alright so that
was fun make sure to review and reach out if you have any questions and have a great day